


And Four Shall (not) Ryde

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 09:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19148353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There is a thin line between "helping with the job" and "causing a bigger screw-up than even the Horsepersons at their best" and humanity have gone and crossed it.





	And Four Shall (not) Ryde

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a tumblr post by little-pagan but I ended up going in a very different direction

There is a place which _isn't_ a small fast-food restaurant by a dusty roadside, but looks very similar, and you could be forgiven for thinking so. If you don't pay attention, you can accidently walk through the walls and sometimes it takes a few seconds for the staff to flicker into existence. The most real thing in it is a bleeping, flashing quiz game machine stood in one corner that appears cheerfully unaware of the mood in the room.

War sits at a small metal table, unusually still. Her hand are coated in someone else's blood. The old gleam in her eyes - the savage thrill of the hunt and of the kill and of the chaos of fighting - has gone. Now they are bleak and empty, the eyes of someone who has watched children go to fight and seen the boxes that come home. She no longer laughs or smirks, instead she mutters the names of those she has taken over and over and over, yet the other Horsemen do not hear her. She is alone.

Famine and Pollution are arguing by the counter - or maybe it's just a regular conversation loud in War's silence.  
"They will listen when we speak. They are so, so hungry for someone to come and solve all their problems." Sable is a name he finds himself using more and more often nowadays. Indeed Famine would look every inch the successful businessman were it not for his too-sharp teeth bared in anger.  
"I follow in _you're two's_ wake..." he glares at Pollution, but can't quite bring himself to look War in the face, "to at least try and fill the void and hunger you leave behind."

"It is too late for talking." Pollution's voice oozes. Thick black oil leaks out of one eye and their skin glistens. Once they said arsenic is forever - they are far too aware of the full truth of that now.  
"Talk to them and some won't listen. But show them what's coming..." They laugh, a wet, sticky sound. "It is marvellous how they clamour for my destruction."

Throughout all of this, Death has been watching the games machine chirp. He is spread so thin now, parts of his consciousness everywhere there is death, but some part has been here, listening to this conversation. The quiet rustle of his cowl sounds almost like great wingbeats.

YOU WOULD HASTEN YOUR OWN ENDING

he asks, although it's not really a question.  
Death's voice has always been empty, like it went straight to your brain and not bother with the ears, but there is something different about it now. It is has hollowness that comes from cradling too many small, stiff bodies. It has an empty ring that comes from watching the last of a species die quietly and unmourned - time and time again. Creation's shadow seems as fragile and insubstantial as a true shadow.

Suddenly, War turns to look at him, at all three of them. To truly look, and she seems more solid than she did before.  
"What if that was for the best."

You cannot kill an idea (not like a person), but you can make it wish for an ending that it cannot have.


End file.
